Your attitude is the most important factor to your success. People judge your actions by your attitude and no matter how good you are at something you will not succeed unless you have an attitude that is accepted by other people. I once had a teacher in English, he was very good at English but he was always angry; he yelled at the pupils all the time accusing them for being lazy. The result was that we did not make our homework and we all got bad grades.

Later in life I had different jobs but usually people were not happy with me and I did not understand why because I was so good at doing the job. I realised what was wrong when a project manager at a cultural initiative faced me said it straight to me: “Erik! I do not like your attitude!” I quit the job and felt extremely hurt but actually he helped me. It was my attitude that hindered my success.

I took this experience and learned from it. Later I started my own business and to have an income the first couple of years I took an extra job on the side. At a glance it looked like a boring job, but I decided that I would keep a positive attitude and be happy about everything at that job. No matter how silly and stupid things I had to do I chose to do it with an exaggerated positive attitude. I thought to myself that it did not matter if things were boring it was not a job where I needed to succeed – but I did! It turned out that no matter how bad things are, they will not fire me and they were always happy to see me. I had managed to change more than I could ever imagine even though I did not try to.

People want to listen to people with an engaged and positive attitude. Thus, if you want success: Be happy and positive about absolutely everything! You will discover that your attitude will affect your own perception as well.

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Do your life feel chaotic and cluttered? Most of us have tried the frustrating feeling of chaos and loss of perspective. Everything seems hopeless and you just feel like giving up. This entry is an introduction to frequent tips on how to clean up your life and regain your sense of perspective.

In my worldview it is all about energy and whether that energy has a positive or negative impact on my life. To maintain a good perspective of life I think it is very important to keep things as simple as possible. Do not cling to the past, live in the present and do not worry about the future. The past is history and there is nothing you can do to change it and the future is unknown, so why worry? I have a strong believe that my present actions will lead to a good future.

Take a good look at your life areas, like partnership, physical surroundings, economy, health, mind, social network etc. Every aspect of your life needs to be cleaned up. You have to remove everything that you do not need. Remove items or thoughts that belong to the past and do not contribute to a positive development. E.g. if you went through a divorce, then you need to remove everything that reminds you of your ex partner in order to get on in life.

In general you need to remove things that you do not use, because they will clutter your life and fill it with stagnation or even destruction.

You have to communicate what you need in order to get it. If you go to a café and stand in front of the counter, saying nothing, what do you think will happen? Nothing will happen, because you do not say what you want. After a while the barista will ask you what you want and if you stay quiet she will either get impatient or service the next guest.

The result of your visit was: Nothing!

If the barista has worked at the place for a while she will be very good at spotting regular customers and even different types of new customers and she will automatically know what they will order. Whether we like it or not, then we tend to put other people into boxes in our brain. At the café people who drink café latte may have traits that look alike and the barista can spot this, and she will put the customer into the café-latte-box in her brain.

You can make use of this knowledge by communicating what you want, not only in words but also by using symbols. If you want success – then look successful; if you want to be happy – then smile; if you want to write a book – then bring your laptop etc.

People will spot you and the message you communicate and they will help you to reach your goals.

Presuming that you know what you want and where to get it the next step is learning the rules to be accepted and to benefit from the network you take part in. When you enter a social network it is very important to keep a low profile, listen and observe. You need to understand what other members of the network do and why they do it. Be very careful about critic. No matter how well-founded your critics may be – you are better off keeping it to yourself.

If you do not agree on the way things work, then focus on the positive things and keep the negative things to yourself. Usually people are well aware of things that do not work but they do not like being reminded about it; especially not from new members of the network. You will get much more respect if you turn you focus to something positive and make sure you communicate the positive things. It is okay to exaggerate, it will only make people laugh and if you can make someone laugh it is a sign of accept and respect.

For example: You start a new job and the computers suck. They never work and the software is outdated. It is almost impossible to get your work done and it is extremely annoying. It would be so easy to get new computers or to update the software and it is incredible that no one has taken the responsibility yet. What do you do? You could point it out and take initiative to change the computers. But remember that people in general do not like changes; they prefer to keep something that does not work because they know what they have, but they do not know what they will get. Do not try to change anything if you are new in a network! Find a positive focus and communicate it. Say e.g. “Hey, look at all the nice colours on my screen!” in a very enthusiastic voice or say “Great! You really keep your keyboard nice and clean!”